secret to the Isthmian Line."

"Oh, he couldn't think you'd do that!" I protested.

"Well, I've known it done," Aiken said. "Quay certainly sold us out at
New Orleans. And Laguerre may think I went shares with him."

I began to wonder if Aiken was not probably the very worst person I
could have selected to introduce me to General Laguerre. It seemed as
though it certainly would have been better had I found my way to him
alone. I grew so uneasy concerning my possible reception that I said,
irritably: "Doesn't the General know you well enough to trust you?"

"No, he doesn't!" Aiken snapped back, quite as irritably. "And he's
dead right, too. You take it from me, that the fewer people in this
country you trust, the better for you. Why, the rottenness of this
country is a proverb. 'It's a place where the birds have no song,
where the flowers have no odor, where the women are without virtue,
and the men without honor.' That's what a gringo said of Honduras many
years ago, and he knew the country and the people in it."

It was not a comforting picture, but in my discouragement I remembered
Laguerre.

"General Laguerre does not belong to this country," I said, hopefully.

"No," Aiken answered, with a laugh. "He's an Irish-Frenchman and
belongs to a dozen countries. He's fought for every flag that floats,
and he's no better off to-day than when he began."